The End of Forever
by spiffy the scribbler
Summary: !A Sequel! So, going to school with two teenage, hormonally charged Archangels is kind of weird, but it's worse when Charles goes missing, your mom's evil ex-boyfriend wants world domination, and Blue Bloods keep disappearing all over the place. [ABANDONED]


**Hello again! So I read Misguided Angel last Christmas, and just bought Bloody Valentine - WHO ELSE CANNOT WAIT FOR LOST IN TIME?**

**Just want to say thanks for following my... Er... Looks like a trilogy, I guess... So yes. This is a SEQUEL, and if you haven't read my other fanfic When We Say Forever, head to my profile and read it! None of this story will make sense if you don't... And if you have read:**

**Misguided Angel**

**Keys to the Repository**

**Bloody Valentine**

**This story will make a lot more sense. Although, it's not neccessary if you haven't. It's just that I wrote this knowing everything from those three books. And did anyone else seriously love Schuyler's dad? And believe me when I say I was BAM-SHOCKED when I read about Allegra in Bloody Valentine. I never pictured her to be so... Like Alice LOL. For those haters out there who think I made Alice a carbon copy of Allegra (well, I sorta did physically, huh?), it's called coincidence. I imagined a young Allegra, and Alice is what I got. And SHAZAAAM, Allegra's like... Cool. Not all Queen-of-the-Blue-Bloods thing going on. She's a 16 year old. I like that.\**

**Although I'm kind of depressed at the moment, as one does when one sees the hit count and the review count together. On When We Say Forever, I mean. Oh well. Such is life. Lack of reviews always saddens me.**

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_'I never said I wouldn't,' Charles Force murmured from his armchair. 'But my version of the story is probably not the right one, or at least not the one you want to hear.' He nursed a glass of whisky and stared at the girl opposite him over the rim. So young. And yet, wiser than all the world. So beautiful, the most beautiful creature the Almighty had fashioned. She was Allegra, decades ago. The Allegra who had given herself to Bendix and never looked back. But she wasn't._

_'I want to know all the versions of it,' Alice replied._

_Charles grunted. 'I assume your sister has told you everything.'_

_'Assuming is dangerous, Michael. I promise you that.'_

_And so, without another word, he opened his mind to her and let her scour his memories, watch them all, let her feel his pain and suffering, letting the floodgates open for the first time since that day all those years ago. And when she had retreated from his consciousness, Charles downed the rest of his whisky._

_'Since Florence,' he said softly, 'I have never forgiven myself. But they all kept saying she would return to me. That we would always be together.' He knew they would not be together again in this lifetime. He tried to avoid thinking that they may never be together again. But how would his love survive? If it was her true wish and desire to not be with him, he would grant it, but... 'But – she will diminish, won't she? She cannot survive without our bond.' So he would bond with her, if only just to save her, and would accept that she did not desire it, but he would make her do it, he would force her to do it, if it meant saving her._

_Alice tucked her legs underneath her on the antique sofa, but she said nothing, staring at into nowhere, her mind obviously somewhere else. Stephen? That was the best alias Allegra could come up with for the father of her child? If what she saw in Charles' mind was true, then technically speaking, Schuyler was entitled to a lot more than the memory of her father. Several billion dollars worth, to be exact._

_'She cannot live without our bond!' Charles was saying, his hands now gripping the arms of the chair tightly. 'It is part of the punishment we were given!'_

_But Alice was still elsewhere. She had been there, in Florence. She had seen the change in her sister's heart. And yet, she pitied Michael, for all his bullheaded and stubborn ways, all he'd ever done was love her. But Uriel, the Wise, knew better than anyone that if it was the Almighty's will, it happened. If it was not, then it did not. It was something most everyone seemed to forget, both the Red and Blue Blooded. Things did not happen by coincidence or sheer chance. The world did not turn on its own, and peoples' lives did not end or continue by luck. If He willed it, it was so. Uriel had long accepted that was how it was and would always be, from the moment she had been created. The Almighty had known Lucifer would betray him, had known Gabrielle would follow the Damned, had known Schuyler would be born – because he willed it to be so. He had willed the breaking of the bond between the Uncorrupted – a bond, Alice thought, that had been forced upon them when they'd left with the fallen of their kind. It was not their place to question why He willed things the way they were, although most did, more often because what happened caused pain or inconvenience and so on. But without pain and suffering, there was no compassion and kindness. Without death there was no life. Without sorrow there was no joy. She was a believer of the words, 'The end does not justify the means,' but the Almighty was beyond anything and anyone. Even if it seemed harsh and cruel, crazy and unreasonable, it was for the best. World disasters, terrorist attacks, genocide, persecution and injustice happened two reasons: because Lucifer had poisoned the minds of individuals, and because the Almighty let Lucifer do so. Not because He wanted suffering and pain, but because only through suffering and pain did the human race learn and change. His was the only means that justified the end._

_'She will die!' Charles yelled at her, 'She will not survive, and you're happy to let her be as she will! Gabrielle will die!'_

_Alice raised her head, her face unreadable, but her blue eyes as clear as day. 'Did you not hear me, Michael, when I said that it was dangerous to assume?'_

* * *

_Poppin' bottles in the ice; like a blizzard._

_When we drink we do it right, gettin' slizzered._

_Sippin' sizzurp in my ride, like three six._

_Now I'm feelin' so fly, like a G6..._

Alice Anstruther-Black (secretly Alice Stoneleigh) slid through the sea of bared skin and expensive perfume. The laser lights beamed overhead, flashing and colouring the dark blue of the club like neon. She could smell the overpriced cocktails on the mingled breath of the people she passed. She moved like a sylph; as though her feet didn't even touch the ground, graceful and easily, like her whole body was molten silk. Slipping a sexy smile at a boy standing by the stairs as she went by, Alice flipped her hair over her shoulder, slowly, like there was nothing in the world that interested her at all. She stopped at the top of the stairs and surveyed the scene around her, and she could feel the eyes on her, feel the interest she garnered. This mission was rather insulting, she thought, making sure she kept her thoughts to herself. Kingsley was down by the bar, keeping eyeball on the entries and exits – but he had all ears open to any remarks he could report to Allegra that would get her in a heap of trouble and lectures longer than the equator. The last time Alice had let her tongue slip, Allegra had sat her down in a very motherly-but-irritating fashion and explained in rather eye-rolling detail that despite her already found strength, she had much to learn – or rather, remember, and that she still had not mastered her abilities as she should. Apparently, according to her sister-turned-legal guardian who really liked to think she could treat her like an extra daughter, Alice needed practice, to brush up, because she was, in a word, _rusty. _It was a word Alice had come to despise.

'You haven't been an active Venator in centuries, Alice,' Allegra had said matter-of-factly. 'You were good, I give you that. But you're barely seventeen in this cycle, and you need to brush up. I don't want you out there without any practise. What guidelines have you got to go by?'

Alice had made a face that said she disagreed – strongly. 'All right, firstly, my memories will serve me just fine as my guidelines. Secondly, may I remind you without tooting my own wonderful horn that Uriel – aka _me – _was not merely _good. _I happened to be _the greatest_ Venator to have _ever _walked this earth, and you know that as well as anyone. And _thirdly_, as if I hardly need another reason, I'm a quick learner in this life anyway. Always have been.' She rather liked the touch about the greatest Venator thing. It was true – and undisputed – and a fact she didn't really think about, until now, since her sister had landed her all the baby missions in the Venator agenda. Uriel's talents were especially, almost magnificently suited to the profession of the Venators. The abstract – the truth – was what Uriel did best. Didn't Allegra think that she would be a little more useful elsewhere, like, oh, she didn't know... Say, hunting Silver Bloods, instead of chasing the vampire world's equivalent of flesh traders? Alice was deeply disgusted by blood houses and all they stood for, but _really_? Really, Gabrielle?

_Silk paisley print, in your corner. _

Kingsley's voice in her head gently roused her from her ponderings, and Alice effortlessly leaned on the railing, looking around as though she were the spoiled princess that she was, looking for her next high, casually landing a good and very thorough glance to the corner of the balcony where a leggy, olive-skinned woman wearing the print Kingsley tried to describe was evidently flirting her way between the Hulk in a suit and greasy-looking, but far less bulked up, Casanova. Alice rolled her eyes, but not at the woman.

_It's called Pucci, you moron. _Alice turned, leaning on the railing again but this time by her elbows, smoothly taking an electric blue cocktail from a passing waiter. Paisley and Pucci were _so _not the same.

_Pucci, paisley, pizza, pierogi, same thing. _

Alice ignore d him for a moment, observing the woman. She'd never thought people in the blood trade could dress so, well, _well. _Weren't they meant to be greasy, dirty, undignified individuals with obviously no care for anyone or anything other than themselves, let alone _Pucci? _Heck, let alone _style? _But then she remembered – this was a new breed of blood trader. A type that were what discreet, high-class call-girls were to politicians. Typical blood traders, Alice knew, dealt to the Blue Blood outcasts – those who had abandoned the Code, the way to salvation. Those without the same kind of resources and power as the ones who stayed faithful. They had money, of course, but not power or influence. No, the kind of vampires this new breed of blood seller dealt with were _powerful _ones. Ones who held power in the human world. Which made them all the more dangerous. If influential Blue Bloods were using sold blood, how far in them had the taint spread? How much more of themselves had turned so depraved, so dark? And power in the human sphere usually meant power in the Blue Blood sphere. So, the bottom line was powerful Blue Bloods were breaking one of the most hallowed laws of their kind – and that was not the part that anyone was afraid of. If they could sink so low, be so far from the Code, of what else were they capable? Were they simply wayward, in need of help, or were they traitors, working for Lucifer as his agents on earth? And there was another thing – these traders didn't just sell used blood – abandoned familiars – but they took new blood for their clients.

By force.

If a client had any preferences – male, female, plain, pretty, tall, short, freckled, young, old – the trader would 'find' a suitable blood source, familiar to another or new blood altogether. Red Bloods thought that human trafficking consisted of being sold into sex slavery, prostitution. Oh, but there was another kind, one that was worse than the kind they knew. It wasn't just blood being sold. Clients were free to do what they wished with their temporary familiars.

_Anything _they wished.

Well, Alice thought, okay, so it was a _fairly _important matter, these new blood traders. She would have been more insulted if Allegra had made her deal with the ordinary blood houses, she supposed.

_She doesn't like greaseball. Hit up the big guy, _she heard Kingsley say.

_The Hulk, it is. _Alice weaved around the VIP area, to where the target sat on a tall stool in between the two men. She said quietly aloud, but projected it loudly into the woman's mind, 'I do prefer mine with a little more flesh than grease.' Voicing it into her head, firstly, made sure that she was heard, and secondly, made the target think that she was _good _at what she did; the best of these blood traders liked to think that they had the ability to distinguish Blue Bloods from ordinary people through a weird sort of sixth sense. Alice mentally turned up her nose. They didn't, of course, but like any normal person, they thought having special abilities made them more suited to one profession than another. And Alice needed to make her comfortable.

Alice emerged from the shadow, her skin luminescent from the way the lights hit her, and her eyes piercing. Her hair was a white-gold crown cascading down, sleek and smooth, down past her shoulders. She looked dangerous, deadly – beautiful. She made sure to run the tip of her tongue tantalizingly across the bottom of her canines.

Just because these Red Bloods sold blood, it didn't mean they knew the truth of the front-fang myth.

The woman's eyes widened, visibly sparked.

'Do you?' she asked, her flat accent (American, but otherwise giving nothing away) reaching Alice's ears, touching the chest lightly of the giant man beside her. The man followed her gaze, and gave a gold-toothed grin to Alice. Like the woman, he liked what he saw.

'Oh, yes,' Alice said, moving her gaze slowly up and down the Hulk in pretend-appreciation. 'Big – and full of... Ah... _Life_.' Her eyes narrowed, her lips curved as she said the word, and in that moment, Alice was sure that the trader knew exactly what she was dealing with.

The woman extended a narrow hand, made chunky with gold rings. 'I don't believe we've met. Yvonne Leroy,' she said, smiling like a satisfied cat.

Alice smiled back, her own far more sly, more lethal. 'Alice Anstruther-Black,' she responded, taking her hand. It was cold, but her rings were icy. She thought suddenly of Dominic, his warmth. It had taken a hell of lot to convince him to let her on this mission alone.

'I have a private suite in the back,' Yvonne Leroy said, looking at Alice, and then at the Hulk. Her tone suggested something along the lines of a threesome, but she thought she knew better.

Alice did. 'Oh, I haven't come alone, I'm afraid,' she said helplessly, her crisp consonants and perfect vowels adding to the effect; to the Hulk, she looked like a spoiled little princess who wandered out of daddy's sheltered and protected compound. Good. She didn't miss the spark of delight in both of them – and also saw the look in Casanova's eyes. Alice read him perfectly; he was being ignored, but perhaps he was invited to this little get-together?

Yvonne quickly cleared him of that notion as she stepped between him and the Hulk, her back completely to Casanova, thus pressing herself up to the bigger man. 'Did you bring... A friend?'

Someone like me? Alice wanted to say. 'He's rather picky, I should tell you.'

'He?' Yvonne asked, nodding, looking around. 'I think I have some... _Friends_ around, he might like.'

Alice smiled, chuckling. Dominic would not have a nice experience knowing the situation his wife was about to enter. 'I'm sure you do.'

* * *

Schuyler van Alen collapsed onto the floor, a sword – her mother's – in her hand. She was flat on her back, panting, her free hand over her eyes. Sweat was gathering in even the most annoying places.

'All right, water break,' Dominic said, grinning.

He was sweaty too, but Schuyler wished that she looked half as good all rough and rumbled as he did. It was as though he had walked right out of a movie, where the hero was all manly and sweaty, dirty and worn out – and of course, more gorgeous than ever. She took her hand off her eyes in time to see him slip his sword back into the hilt and crouch, then sit beside her, facing her, his legs stretched out before him.

'Tired?' he asked, reaching out for the bottles of Fiji water on the side table – Schuyler watched as they zoomed right into his hands. They hadn't covered moving things with her mind yet. Not in detail, anyway. If she focused, she could maybe push something – something heavy, at least – over, or send something flying, but not necessarily in the right direction, or with the speed or force she wanted. What she saw Dominic do, she knew, was completely effortless for him. He still wasn't in control of his all his powers, of all his strength and ability as Raphael – but he was well on the way. His bonding had allowed him to access more of his memories, more of his true strength, but Blue Bloods only fully came into their own at the age of 21, and since bondings usually took place at that age, most associated bondings with completing themselves.

They were in the Van Alen mansion on Riverside Drive, in the living room, where the furniture had been pushed aside so that there was ample room for them to train. The large doorway leading to the entrance hall helped too.

Schuyler merely let out a groan, and Dominic laughed. His amusement made Schuyler smile; he'd been rather depressed about being left behind for the current Venator mission Alice was on, and while he'd put on a good show of not being too bothered, it was still obvious. They'd had a honeymoon, at least, Schuyler thought. She'd no idea where, but for two weeks, the pair of them had disappeared, and come back glowing and were all over each other more than ever. And they'd been on all their missions together, but then the time came when Alice had decided that she, her niece and apparent Blue Blood Saviour, needed to get her butt into gear. Coincidentally, Charles (but Allegra, really) had allocated Alice an assignment, and so it was left to Dominic to help her control her powers. Jack came around every day too; he was poring through Lawrence's old books. He'd meant what he'd said in Florence – it was just sort of impractical. So when he wasn't helping with her new education, he read. He spent his days with her, stayed late and occasionally stayed the night. Her mother was currently at Force Tower, doing whatever it was that she did. So it was Dominic's turn today. He'd chosen something practical – literally. He was teaching her defensive action; with and without a weapon. If she needed to run, she needed to learn how fast to run, when, and how to lose her pursuers using tricks of the glom. If she needed to defend, not attack, she needed to learn how to without leaving herself – or those she was protecting – open. And that wasn't the hard part. Schuyler needed to learn how to do all of it in conjunction with the power of the glom.

'I should tell you that it doesn't get much easier,' Dominic said simply, handing her a chilled bottle.

Schuyler cracked her eyes open, her mouth dropped a little, and she stared at him in disbelief. He was serious.

'You do get better at it though,' he added, smiling softly. 'This isn't easy, but if we're going to teach you something first, it'd best be this. I know Red Bloods think the best defence is a good offence, but I think in your case, it's better you know how to protect yourself than to attack right now; we'll try taking it out in the city tomorrow.' He drank deeply from his bottle and raised his knees so his elbows rested on them. 'You'll learn how to take them down eventually. Better you learn defence now and offence later.' Dominic smiled sheepishly. 'Or that could be the great defender in me talking. I'm better at it, anyway. In comparison to your mother and Alice, as well as Charles, I'm not the one to teach you how to vanquish anyone.'

'You miss her, huh?' Schuyler heard herself say, and then she turned red, mortified with herself. Great one, Sky, just rub in the fact that his wife wasn't around.

But Dominic didn't seem bothered. 'I'm not doing a very good job of acting unaffected, am I?'

Schuyler laughed, but she shook her head. 'What's it like?' she asked.

'What?'

'Being bonded.' Schuyler sat up, crossing her legs. 'Is it like being married?'

Dominic smiled again and took another drink, shrugging. 'I can't really make the comparison, now, can I?' But then a warm, mysterious smile took over the amused one. 'I've only ever observed, but I imagine that not all Red Blood marriages are the lowly, petty things some think them to be.' There was something in his eyes, something in his words that seemed a lot like hope. A lot like faith. 'I've seen a lot of things, Schuyler. I don't even remember all of it yet, but...' His gaze seemed so focused, so clear, but somehow a million miles away. 'What has been written about love is not entirely of the human imagination.'

Something in Schuyler lifted and yet, her heart broke at his words. She knew what he meant. There were Blue Bloods like Mimi who thought Red Blood love as nothing, that real and worthwhile love was only between their kind. Those who thought Red Blood matrimony meant nothing, that vows were broken every day; love was forgotten in a matter of decades in comparison to the true forever binding vampire bonds. And Schuyler thought of all the things humankind had ever written, ever claimed about love. Dominic was right – it couldn't be all fantasy.

'It is in some ways true that today is not the greatest example of human love; divorce rates are higher, and real love is heavily – too much so – dependent on sex and "spark and sizzle".' Dominic laughed at that, making the finger quotation marks. 'Humans do have a strange way of thinking. The perception of real love has been deformed altogether; what a great number of Red Bloods believe is that love is endless excitement, constant passion, love so strong that it can withstand anything and everything regardless of whatever comes against them – that it doesn't need effort or work.' He shrugged. 'So when passion and lust dims between a husband and wife, they immediately think that they're not in love anymore – or worse, they think they were never in _real _love in the first place. What a lot of them expect of love isn't right.' He said it simply, like a fact, like he'd just said the world is made of atoms. 'I don't mean that passion is useless, or that lusting after your spouse is bad.'

Schuyler saw a gleam in his eyes that made her feel warm; she wasn't in love with him or anything, but there was a look, a tone that everybody knew, and she knew he was thinking of something that _she_ shouldn't think about.

Dominic chuckled. 'We're all mature here, now, aren't we?' He shifted, downing the rest of his water. 'I just mean to say, what people know as love isn't what it was intended to be. Too many Red Bloods expect love to be something that it really just isn't. Some expect guaranteed bliss, smooth sailing all the time, so when problems come up in a marriage it's over. They think love does it all for you, so they don't work on it, and of course, it gets worse. But I can't say I've lost all hope in humans. I've seen too much good come from love – human love, even. What I feel for Alice is one thing... And believe me when I say that... But I would be lying if I said that I had never seen real, true love between Red Bloods. Love that you could believe in, could trust in. Love that lasted. The bond between the Blue Blooded is different; really, it is incomparable. I believe that you truly cannot say that one type of bond is superior to another. They're too different. The bonds we have are defined by a different set of laws and limits altogether. We're not human, Schuyler, so how can we really force ourselves to live by a set of concepts not meant for us? It's one of the reasons we created the Code. We're not _above _Red Blood law or moral value, we're just _different._ Although, from a Red Blood perspective, our bonds do seem terribly romantic. But when I see common elements between our bonds and theirs... To pledge commitment for so long as their existence allows, sacrifice... It reminds me we were all created by the same One. Men, angels, doesn't matter. Love is, and love shall be.' He met her gaze this time, a smile in his eyes, but not on his lips. When she gave him a look that said she only partly knew what he was talking about, he said,

'Hey, Shakespeare had to get his material from somewhere.'

* * *

**I kind of went overboard in creating my characters, I think. I even went so far as to visualise their opinions and views on every little thing and it ended up in the story. Oh well.**

**REVIEW. REVIEW, OR I'LL SET MY VAMPIRES (THE NOT NICE ONES) ON YOU. '**

**spiffy**

'I want to know, Michael, and you will tell me.'


End file.
